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Regulation, full stop. The reason Big tech makes so much profits is because they have no accountability and at their scale, social shaming doesn’t work.
by emsy 4y ago
Regulation, full stop. The reason Big tech makes so much profits is because they have no accountability and at their scale, social shaming doesn’t work.
- rglullis 4y agoRight. Heavily-regulated industries like banking, auto and healthcare are known for being so much better at treating its customers like human beings...
- harry8 4y agoYup. Too big to fail sucks just as hard in banking. Google needs to be broken up as badly as banks do. It's a battle that keeps on coming up and here it is again.
- whatshisface 4y agoWhat would someone break Google up into, ad and vertisements? If you look at their quarterly reports you'll see that they are almost entirely based around one product.
- rightbyte 4y agoYou could cut out ads from the rest. And make Google buy ad space from Foogle Search.
- whatshisface 4y agoOf the viable companies, each would still be a monopoly.
- rglullis 4y agoWhy stop at Google? Why don't we simply get rid of the idea of the mega corporation?[0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317641
- deelowe 4y agoBecause it’s regressive. We need to fix the issues, not throw the whole thing out.
- rglullis 4y agoThese "issues" only exist because of the scale and reach of Corporations. You can not fix "too big to fail" issues unless you stop letting these institutions to grow too big in the first place. I'm yet to hear a single convincing argument of why we need to have organizations of such a large scale nowadays. Could you make a case of what we would be missing if we just "threw the whole thing out"?
- mcny 4y agoI propose another option: unless you can show clear written instructions, the ceo and the board are personally criminally responsible for the acts of their agents, contractors, and employees at the course of their duty. If your branch manager incorrectly adds your teller to an industry wide list of do not hire, the board and CEO are personally criminally responsible for it. No hiding behind the corporate veil. I don’t know how to prove whether someone acted in their own and not on the instructions of the employer though. What I’m afraid of is equifax will simply create many companies and divvy up it into equifax backend web services llc that has fewer than 150 employees.
- rglullis 4y ago> What I’m afraid of is equifax will simply create many companies and divvy up it into equifax backend web services llc that has fewer than 150 employees. I'd argue that if the split child company ends up only working for the parent, it is easier for the governments to prosecute them. So the child company would have to get other customers and act as a real independent unit or would have to shut down altogether and the parent company would have to go back to the market to find a proper "web service" provider. I'd also argue that there is no way that a company like Equifax would be able to exist only with 150 people. The whole national level corporation would simply be broken down into many localized offices. Their databases would no longer be shared. The damage that each unit could make would be reduced, and their customers would be much closer to the managers responsible in ensuring that their data is managed properly. In other words, my argument is that Capitalism and market forces do work. We just need to have these systems deployed in the correct scale.
- Sander_Marechal 4y agoThey are, in Europe, where we have decent regulation and consumer protection with teeth.
- rglullis 4y agoI'll buy that when the German auto makers get to pay properly for Dieselgate. Until then, EU regulation will be just a demonstration that money and power still talks just like in the US, the only difference is that Europeans are better at fooling themselves about their moral superiority.
- riedel 4y agoI fully agree that automakers should be held responsible. However, I am feeling a bit of negative sentiment here. What does 'properly' mean? There has been court cases that have been decided against them. Sure there is always more. But this sounds a bit like whatabotism. Also there is a high probability of defeat devices in Citroen, Dacia, Fiat, Ford and Honda cars as well. It is however true that the EU create a huge grey zone. But what does that mean in terms of court cases against cloud providers??
- robertlagrant 4y agoIt's not whataboutism. Read the comment it was replying to.
- rglullis 4y ago"Properly" means that the automakers should pay a fine per vehicle sold that was producing more emissions than allowed, and that fine should be so high as to effectively get them into bankruptcy. It should also put in jail anyone that was aware of the violation and did not report to the authorities. Everyone, from the CEO to the test engineer who knew about the cheating devices. Anything less than that and all you are getting is an incentive for the make a risk calculation between profit and losses of being caught. > Also there is a high probability of defeat devices in Citroen, Dacia, Fiat, Ford and Honda cars as well. Which would be a sign that the regulations are not really working and consumers are just getting fooled into believing that their beloved EU is oh-so-awesome.
- antihero 4y agoIn these industries the regulation is the only thing preventing them being unfathomably worse.
- robertlagrant 4y agoIt's not the only thing.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y agoMarket competition only goes so far.
- robertlagrant 4y agoGlad we agree!
- belorn 4y agoUnregulated banking tend to have a bit more ponzi schemes, pump and dump, and money laundering than regulated banking. Unregulated auto tend to have a bit more lemon markets than regulated auto. Unregulated healthcare tend to have a bit more snake oil, blood letting and cocaine than regulated healthcare. Unregulated food sector tend to have a bit more Listeria and Salmonella then regulated food sector. No regulation are not know for being that nice either, which is to say that some regulation is good and some regulation is too much, but one can't dismiss regulation as just being bad.
- rglullis 4y agoI did not argue that regulation is unnecessary or bad. The argument is that regulation of Big Industries does not bring you better support nor makes the companies more focused in treating customers as individuals.
- nottorp 4y agoThere could be an argument that US regulators allow companies to be much more customer hostile than other places... i believe it's done in the name of "innovation".
- belorn 4y agoIt all depend on the reason and target of the regulation. Patients might have historically liked doctors more when they prescribed cocaine, alcohol and morphine for most ailments, but then the target of modern regulation is not customer short-term happiness. It is health. The issue of regulating big industries and big tech in particular is what outcomes we want to avoid and how a healthy market can be created where one does not exist. Words like infrastructure, platforms, and lock-in are all associated with a lack of market choice and competition. Bad support could be a symptom of that, but the target of regulations wouldn't be about support but rather to avoid having a situation where citizens are unknowingly building their homes and companies on quicksand.
- lupire 4y agoYou are arguing against yourself. Now, only drug addicts who ignore laws can get painkillers.
- nightfly 4y agoYou think those industries suck now, imagine what they're like without regulation holding their feet on the path a bit.
- iakov 4y agoI haven't heard stories about bank's AI deciding to close a person's account, take all their life savings, and refuse any explanation, contact or cooperation. Maybe regulation has to do something with it?
- rglullis 4y ago1) There have been stories of N26 customers who are locked out of their accounts, or had their devices stolen and lost their funds to thieves and the bank refused to reverse the transaction. 2) No, regulation (or the lack of it) has nothing to do with it. 3) No one is arguing for the end of regulation.
- unity1001 4y agoHeavily regulated industries ANYWHERE in the world except the US work perfectly fine. Its because regulations are watered down in the US that they don't.
- shultays 4y agono accountability Can't they sue google? Surely this is a case here.
- josephg 4y agoI'm a fan of regulating big tech, but in this case reputation will also make a big difference. I know lots of people who actively avoid google's cloud products because they don't trust google not to pull stunts like this. There have been too many stories on HN and twitter over the years of business critical google accounts being suspended for no reason or google cloud products massively increasing their price overnight. I don't trust google as a provider for business-critical infrastructure. I'm far from alone.
- karamanolev 4y agoThe cost to provide proper support for the 99.9% is much much larger than the benefit of bringing on the possibly 0.1% who don't trust Google and avoid their products. This minority cannot be the solution to the problem.
- sumedh 4y ago> bringing on the possibly 0.1% who don't trust Google I would imagine it would be more than 0.1%.
- bratbag 4y agoAnecdotally I cannot remember the last time I have mentioned GCP in person or in online discussions without the conversation turning into why no-one wants to use them for anything serious. I suspect it's far more than 0.1%. They have a bad reputation and word-of-mouth is now working against them.
- 7952 4y agoI wonder if you could require that some data be made accessible to the user. Like transaction logs and actions relating to those transactions. So that you have direct incontrovertible evidennce of the internal state. That could then be used by third party support, or even courts.
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- christophilus 4y agoI'm not opposed to regulation, but in this case, another solution already exists. That is, competitive services that pride themselves on great customer service and satisfaction. Apple kind of does this in the iPhone vs Google phone wars. Azure and AWS do this in the cloud wars. Fastmail and Proton mail do this in the email wars, etc. Regulation didn't force Fastmail to be awesome; it's just the core of their business model and differentiation.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]